Coronavirus
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LogGrad98
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First official Omicron death in the U.S.. Man in his 50s who had been infected before and was unvaccinated.
The Thriller
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Yeah, it doesn’t seem more mild to the unvaccinated. Seems like the best way to avoid serious illness or death is to get vaccinated and boosted. Natural vaccination or Jesus’s blood vaccination doesn’t seem very effective.
The Thriller
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Way too late on this. Should’ve been done at least one month ago. Probably should’ve been a priority for this administration period. Hell, why wasn’t this a priority when this pandemic first hit? Jen Psaki laughing at a reporter’s question a few weeks ago, acting as if mailing tests to people was an absurd question (most industrialized countries are doing this).
Well it's one case, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The Thriller
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Telling followers to give Fauci a kill shot?
seems like the responsible and rational thing to say these days… I’m sure Fox News will hold him accountable for this…
seems like the responsible and rational thing to say these days… I’m sure Fox News will hold him accountable for this…
Al-O-Meter
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The statistics don't support that. There is ONE death due to Omicron which is now the dominant variant in the US. In some areas of the US 90% of all positive tests are coming back as being Omicron. There is ONE Omicron death. Claims that Omicron doesn't seem more mild to absolutely every group we have metrics on is untrue.
Also "had underlying health conditions that made him particularly vulnerable".
Probably should've been vaccinated.
The Thriller
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The Dean of Brown University said just three days ago that the data shows that it might be marginally less severe. He remains unconvinced that it’s significantly less severe and that it remains very dangerous to those unvaccinated.
Al-O-Meter
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I'll need to see the quote where Dr. Ashish Jha says omicron "might be marginally less severe". He doesn't say that in the twitter thread you posted and Dr. Jha also doesn't say that in the article he wrote for the Atlantic.
Don’t Panic About Omicron. But Don’t Be Indifferent, Either.
The next wave of the pandemic requires charting a middle course between dismay and dismissal.
www.theatlantic.com
Of particular note, as you can see in the very twitter thread you posted, he says to ignore case spikes because they don't matter. Specifically he says "we should pay less attention to case counts in Omicron wave", and we should instead "pay close attention to hospitalizations, deaths". Speaking to how Omicron is different Dr. Ashish Jha says "infections invariably led to hospitalizations and deaths But I expect that in this upcoming wave That link will finally break".
Paying attention to hospitalizations and death is exactly what Gameface is doing. There is one omicron death. One! There also have not been spikes in death coupled to spikes in cases in any other country. South Africa has had Omicron for almost 2 months now and there is no spike in death despite the nation only being ~10% vaccinated. For all intents and purposes Omicron is the common cold, and yes people do die from the common cold every year going back to the beginning of time but that isn't a reason to shut society down.
LogGrad98
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No, let's go ahead and get all the way ahead of ourselves.
Al-O-Meter
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That *IS* my argument. I agree with Dr. Jha that Omicron is less severe. It is the use of "marginally" to imply the difference between Omicron and the earlier variants is negligible. The statistics support a massive difference in mortality between Omicron and the earlier variants. I agree with Dr. Jha's opinion of "that in this upcoming wave That link [between infections, hospitalizations, and death] will finally break".
Do you think Dr. Jha is wrong and that the difference is only "marginal"?
The Thriller
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I hope it is less severe. But I think we need to be cautious. Especially if it's only marginally less severe as the significantly more infectious rates might offset the benefits of less severe illness.
The best way to avoid severe illness is to get boosted. That's what the actual experts are saying. I certainly haven't seen any expert tout that it's significantly less severe yet. If anything, most are still holding off on making assumptions until there is more data available. We might find that pretty soon seeing how NYC is currently in their wave of Omicron while Utah is just starting it.
In the quoted tweet, Dr. Jha referred to the link breaking among the vaccinated. You dropped that part, which is unsurprising. So, the difference could well be marginal without Dr. Jha being wrong.
Al-O-Meter
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These days you can find experts who attest to almost anything. It is the data that's telling, and it is available.
South Africa got Omicron first. Here are what the case/hospitalization/death curves look like. You can see that in the original infection, the South African variant now called "beta", and the delta infection, all had spikes in death closely timed with spikes in cases. That isn't the case with Omicron. Omicron cases spiked and deaths barely moved. The death rate right now in South Africa at the top of the Omicron spike is about the same level as the lowest the death rate ever got between beta wave and delta wave.
The above chart shows data from almost a week ago. In the past week, cases in South Africa has peaked and are on the decline.
The worst is over for South Africa. Hospitalization did rise but nowhere near as much as they did for the delta variant. As for deaths, there is no spike.
South Africa is one of the least vaccinated countries on the planet. Omicron simply doesn't kill like the previous variants did. Omicron for all intents and purposes is indistinguishable from the common cold and it is now the dominant variant in the United States. If we are making data-driven decisions, this pandemic is done. We should be moving to a new phase where we convince people the world is as safe as it was in 2019.
